For more information on the 2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards, click here.

E-mail from the City of Hamilton:Hello:
The City of Hamilton is pleased to announce the opening of the 2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards- People's Choice Award!
The People's Choice Award is an opportunity for the public to learn about the many excellent projects in our City and to vote for their favourite project. The winning project of the People's Choice Award will be formally recognized at Council.
Voting can be done online, with an email or over the phone. The People's Choice Award closes on October 10th!
Online voting website:http://www.hamilton.ca/CityDepartmen...e%20Awards.htm

So, nominations were accepted without qualification? Several of these only a mother could love.

Was there really a 'best front yard parking' category?

I love this idea but it would be helpful if there was a little more information on the projects at the city site. And maybe something more than a pixelated thumbnail view of each entrant. A link to a quality photo and some background on each project would be nice.

If the idea is to rate these projects on aesthetics alone then I don't understand why some of these submissions made the cut. But then aesthetics are subjective, and maybe people were able to submit their own projects.

On the other hand, there are so many good ones it will be hard to choose. I wish there were some criteria for voting and, again, more information.

fuller, I sent your feedback to the City, and they said that they agree with it completely -- but won't be able to post larger photos and descriptions this time. But they will make improvements next time.

By the way, the categories and number of awards are determined by the jury -- they are not known in advance. Thus, projects are not nominated for any specific category.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuller

So, nominations were accepted without qualification? Several of these only a mother could love.

Was there really a 'best front yard parking' category?

I love this idea but it would be helpful if there was a little more information on the projects at the city site. And maybe something more than a pixelated thumbnail view of each entrant. A link to a quality photo and some background on each project would be nice.

If the idea is to rate these projects on aesthetics alone then I don't understand why some of these submissions made the cut. But then aesthetics are subjective, and maybe people were able to submit their own projects.

On the other hand, there are so many good ones it will be hard to choose. I wish there were some criteria for voting and, again, more information.

If you want to participate, you need to cast your vote for your favourite urban design project. Please vote soon: voting closes on October 10.

The city created the biennial Urban Design competition in 2005 "to recognize and celebrate excellence in the design of our urban environment". Since the awards' emphasis is on exterior design, the nominees include not only buildings - both new structures and heritage buildings - but also a variety of other works that improve urban design, such as streetscapes, parks, and planning studies.

In past competitions, the jury gave out awards of excellence and merit in many different categories: urban design, architectural design, heritage restoration, community design, adaptive reuse, sustainable design, and a few others.

This year, there are 36 nominees for the Design Awards. All were completed between 2009 and 2011.

A few nominees are big and well known: the Lister Block, City Hall, the Public Library and Farmers' Market, the MacNab Transit Terminal, and CANMET. But there are many other nominees that are less known - or pretty much unknown - and thus worth a closer look.

Have you heard of the "Hamilton Laneway Housing Study"? Are you familiar with the "Gore Master Plan"? Have you walked across the "East Hamilton Waterfront Link"?

This year, the jury who will decide on the Design Awards includes five architects, urban designers, and urban planners: Bruce Cudmore (EDA Collaborative), Jennifer Keesmaat (DIALOG), and Stasia Bogdan (Ministry of Health and Long-term Care), as well as two representatives from the city: Paul Mallard (Director of Planning) and Tim McCabe (General Manager, Planning and Economic Development).

The judges will study presentations and photos of each project and carefully evaluate them, looking at appropriateness, building and landscape design, sustainability, quality, and innovation.

The criterion for the People's Choice Award is simple: which nominee do citizens like best? Use the opportunity to participate in the 2011 Urban Design Awards and choose your favourite project!

Full disclosure: our house - Hambly House - is one of the nominees. I'm not asking you to vote for us, I'm just asking you to get involved and vote for the nominee you like best.

What:
Residents, businesses and the design and development community are invited to cast their vote for the People’s Choice Award for the City of Hamilton’s 2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards. There is a total of 36 projects to choose from, with a wide variety of types of buildings and locations across the City. Projects were submitted by members of the public and the development community. Some examples of projects that were submitted include: the North Hamilton Community Health Centre, Quatrefoil Restaurant, Turner Park Branch Library and Les Chater YMCA, CANMET, Lister Block, Herkimer Apartments, Green Millen Shores Estates, St. Matthew Catholic Elementary School and Juravinski Hospital Redevelopment.

Previous winner of the People's Choice Award was Heritage Greene; a commercial and office development at Upper Mt. Albion Road and Stone Church Road. See why they won and what they had to say about what their win meant to them via:http://www.youtube.com/insidecityofh.../6/RPoa57ZdvAQ

When: Residents and businesses have until October 10, 2011 at 4:30pm to cast their vote. Then, on November 10, in Celebration of World Town Planning Day, the winner will be announced and will be officially recognized and presented with this special Award at a December Council meeting, which will air on Cable 14.

How:
Go online to www.hamilton.ca/udavote to view the complete list of projects, read the descriptions of each project and then select who you think is the best.

Why:
To engage the community and provide an opportunity for everyone to enter their thoughts on what they think is the best in urban design and architecture project submission.
More:
For more information about the Awards, please head to www.hamilton.ca/designawards

Previous winner of the People's Choice Award was Heritage Greene; a commercial and office development at Upper Mt. Albion Road and Stone Church Road.[/url]

how did a big box centre/parking lot, constructed next to a highway, win the urban design awards? I always see cars, and if pedestrians are walking they are walking on stone church road in the bike lane.

how did a big box centre/parking lot, constructed next to a highway, win the urban design awards? I always see cars, and if pedestrians are walking they are walking on stone church road in the bike lane.

msakalau, it may seem like a strange choice but it was the "People's Choice" in 2009.

To avoid a strange winner in 2011, we need to convince many people to vote for the "People's Choice Award".

Hopefully, there will be a good turnout in 2011. The deadline for voting is October 10.

Tough decision but I went with the Jackson Square re-design idea. I too was about to go with the Lister Block but I feel that restoring the streets within Jackson Square would have better economic spinoff results than the Lister Block restoration has/will. I think I would have gone with the Lister if they had restored it as mixed-use.

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"Above all, Hamilton must learn to think like a city, not a suburban hybrid where residents drive everywhere. What makes Hamilton interesting is the fact it's a city. The sprawl that surrounds it, which can be found all over North America, is running out of time."

It’s just one street in the west end of Hamilton, but over the past couple of years some very interesting construction projects have been happening at both ends of it.

At 183 Longwood Rd. S., the $100 million CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory officially opened in February to great fanfare. The building — with its 157 rooms and 145,000 square feet of space — is an important part of the McMaster Innovation Park, located on former Camco property.

Drive down the road to 170 Longwood Rd. N. and you’ll find the oddest little house in the village. It’s called Hambly House, and in a sea of Tudor-style homes, Hambly looks more like a ship. It’s a full-fledged Art Deco, Bauhaus voyage into eccentricity. It was built in 1939 and its current owner spent more than $100,000 to bring it back to former glory.

CanMet and Hambly are just two of 36 entries in this year’s Urban Design and Architecture Awards in a year that has seen a lot of interesting construction projects. And people in Hamilton have the chance to vote for their favourite projects in the People’s Choice category.

Among the entries this year, is the $72 million renovation of Hamilton City Hall that officially reopened in June.

Another entry nearby didn’t involve construction at all. It’s called Urban Sustainability — The Edible Landscape, a project that transformed City Hall gardens into vegetables instead of flowers. The harvest is going to city food banks.

Michelle Sergi, manager of community planning and design for the city, says entries come in many forms in the biennial contest. “We get a variety of submissions and they cross a variety of issues. They go from residential to commercial to industrial. There are new buildings, adaptive reuse of buildings. We also get landscapes submitted.

“It’s about recognizing excellence in design in Hamilton. The goal is to create great places or great spaces for people. Part of that is recognizing the architecture, the landscape, the urban design that goes into the spaces.”

This week's coverage of the Urban Design and Architecture Awards competition by Mark McNeil and Dean Tweed in the Hamilton Spectator was very good - and way better than the coverage of the Toronto Urban Design Awards in the Toronto Star!

If you didn't get a printed copy of Tuesday's Hamilton Spectator, you can view photos, an excellent map with descriptions, and an article on the Urban Design Awards on p. 31 of The Spec's online print version (see also the top of the front page):

“The design and architecture industry has great importance, as it not only injects money into our economy, but it creates an environment that encourages and inspires others to make an investment,” said jury member Tim McCabe, general manager of the planning and economic development department.